Loofah Plant Pictures

While this still isn't quite a current picture of my Loofah plants it is the next  in the series of photos I've been showing you as this plant grows. Despite the horrid heat and drought conditions we have this summer the plant is growing quite well. The one issue I have is that so far there are been no signs of the actual loofah's. I'm hopeful that it will still happen and at the least am hoping for 1. If I get at least one Loofah then I'll have more than enough seeds to start a lot of plants next year.

This is my second set of Loofah plants. The one above and this one were planted (seeds) at the exact same time. This one has seemed to struggle to just get going but as you will see when I get follow up pictures loaded, it is ahead of the large plant by leaps and bounds. I dont know how many times I considered just pulling these up as they weren't "growing" like the others. So happy I didn't do that.

This is the same plant as the one prior. You can see how it is growing up the arch on the one side, doing a little in the middle and on the end where you can't see there s one plant there that is about an inch tall.

When you compare the small plant above to this one, whih is a section of the larger plant you can see what I mean about the size difference. I'm getting ready to head out this morning to check and see if we got rain and how all the garden plants are doing. So check back with me soon as I think I will have some suprises to show you.

July 5, 2012 Garden Pictures, Really starting to see damage from the heat.

 

For those of you new to the blog these strawberries had to be removed from our large patch. My husband and son have started raising the strawberry patch so the size of it had to change. These plants were in the way so they had to be removed. My daughter and I transplanted them into this container and within a day we thought we had killed them. I cut off all the dead leaves leaving the roots in the soil. Slowly but surely the plants starting come back and we have actually gotten about ten strawberries out of this container. My suggestion if you ever have to transplant strawberries, never give up on them, they are quite the hardy plant.

If you are not aware there are two types of strawberries you can get, the plants we have are called Ever bearing. Ever bearing plants will continue to put out strawberries for most of the summer, the other type puts them out one time and that’s it. Ever bearing Strawberries can get quite large but not as large as the other variety. I would prefer having strawberries all summer over having one batch of very large berries.

This is one of the plants in the container, here you can see that it has a small berry that has turned red. You can also see here that on this plant alone there are three more that are still green. Not to bad for a plant that basically had to start all over and catch up with the others.

The two pictures above are showing the range in sizes of strawberries we have been getting. Some have been smaller while others have been quite a bit larger. The really important aspect to us is they are YUMMY! (I like to use big adult words as often as possible. LOL)

The picture on the left are the Blue Lake Green Beans, in this photo they look very good. In the next set of pictures you will see how the heat has really done a number on them.

In the picture on the right are Bush Green Beans, I’m not certain of the brand of these. They had done quite well and had produced like crazy. Then they started looking really bad when the triple digit heat hit us. I went out to pull them out and start a new batch but when I got close and looked they are producing new leaves under the dry ones on top.

I’ve opted to give them a bit more time to see if they come out of the damage the heat did to them and start producing again. If they should not start looking better soon they will be removed, compost added to the bed and another batch of beans started for a fall picking

I took this picture in an attempt to show you the base of this tomato plant. That is one plant, when it was planted it had one stem. If you don’t pick off the sucker leaves on a tomato plant they will start growing as well. These however are not sucker leaves, the stem actually branched out under ground and came up like this. The base of this plant is small in comparison to some of the others.

These have by far been the most amazing Tomato plants I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

This picture taken at a distance doesn’t do justice to how pretty the Loofah plants are. I was attempting to show you the height of the plant. I will have some pictures later on that will show it better. They have reached a height of about 5 ft tall so far.

The two pictures above and the four below are all basically showing the same thing. I am forever amazed at a plants ability to stretch its “arm” out, grab a hold of a supporting object and wrap around it.

Some of these you can see where they had to reach a fair distance, some sent runners one way and then another and yet others just kept wrapping around in the same location.

The plants “knowledge” that it needs to do this in order to support the items it will produce is just something to behold.

I’ve finally gotten my daughter to just sit down and look at plants with me. I mean really look close like this and see the truly amazing things they do.

July 4,2012 Taking a break from the garden

We took a break from working in the garden today to go and have some fun.

Celebrating the 4th is very important to me.  I have the freedom to work my land as I please, to attend the church I wish without fear and to have this blog and say what I wish based on all the men and women who have fought for our freedoms.

My husband and all three of our sons are among those who have gone and fought for our freedoms. Two of them have lifetime issues to deal with because of it. They have no regrets as many of our soldiers don’t. They do what they do for love of God, Family and Freedom.

Grover Park Baptist Church always puts on a very nice public fireworks display. They provide hot dogs, chips and drinks. We were thankful for the drinks as it was unbearably hot out that day.

We met up with friends and had good conversations and laughs.

The Freedom Riders showed up, what a honor it was to see this wonderful group of bike riders. They have done an amazing thing of protecting our military families when loved ones are lost in war. They surround the families and the services to protect them from the ungrateful individuals who protest their funerals.

The Honor Guard was there as well, what a privilege and blessing to see them honoring our flag and country.

The heat got to baby boy a couple of times and he had to lay down and take a little rest. It wasn’t long and he was up and going with more energy than all of us combined. One of the blessings of being a 4 yr. old I guess.

What a special picture this is. Baby boy getting to play and have a good time with his great grandma Shirley.

My  hubby John taking a little rest and relaxing while we wait for it to be time for the display.

I always detest having my picture taken. I look horrid with all my hair pulled back, but had no choice due to the heat. I  had to keep it off my neck and shoulders.

Addie and Grandma laughing and having a good time. There is no telling what those two were plotting.

Baby boy put on a show for us, demonstrating all his fighting or dancing moves. We had a hard time trying to figure out what he was doing and he kept changing his mind about what he was doing.

In the first picture baby boy and mom are enjoying their time with laughter and big smiles.

In the second picture it appears that baby boy and Great Grandma Shirley are dancing, but I’m not sure what they were doing other than having a good time.

I attempted to take a few pictures of the fireworks but either my camera is not suited for such picture taking or I’m just not skilled in taking this type of picture.

I certainly hope you all had a safe and enjoyable fourth of July  celebration.

4th of July

I got more pictures of the garden taken and will post them tomorrow. We had so many things going on today. I had to take several naps in order to try and be rested for the evening events. We had a great time though it was so hot it was hard to deal with. We were really happy once the sun started going down and it cooled off a bit. 

Later today, it's four in the morning right now, I'll post some pictures of the garden and I'll share a few of our celebrations this evening.

The fourth always does make me kind of sad. One of our sons can't stand to go with us to these events since he has done two tours in Iraq, he just can't handle it. Our other son had some things happen while he was in the military and now has 4 different types of epilepsy and he can't handle all the flashing. Our middle son was out of the area and not able to be here. It did cause a heavy weight on my heart but our daughter had a good time and grams got to go with us so that was great. Gramps stayed home since it was so hot out.

I found my joy in watching them and our grandson. So later today I'll get the garden pictures up so you can see what they dry weather is doing and causing us issue. I believe we have to go to watering twice a day just to try and help them survive this. I'll also share a few of our pictures from this evening. I know they have nothing to do with gardening but we have the freedom to have gardens and do the things we do thanks to our soldiers and God so maybe they are appropriate to this blog after all.

Hope you all had a great and safe holiday.